


Warmth

by Echo (Lyrecho)



Series: Recollections [2]
Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Headcanon, Multi, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 14:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14750703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrecho/pseuds/Echo
Summary: Jedah's spell had teleported them into unfamiliar creeping catacombs, and while they'd been healing and trying to work out just what the hell to do with Celica gone, the Deliverance had found them.Two armies merge early, and the changes that come from that.





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MirrorMystic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/gifts).



* * *

The thing about Alm, Mae finds, is that he's just too nice for her to hate. Not that she _wants_ to hate him - he's important to Celica, and that's enough to make him important to her, too - but she's been building up a careful and righteous anger for _months_ now, ever since Zofia Castle, and after she'd met him but before she befriended him, she'd been planning to have _words_ with him.

Now? Her mind is too filled with panic and terrible, aching, gnawing worry over Celica. Jedah's spell had teleported them into unfamiliar creeping catacombs, and while they'd been healing and trying to work out just what the hell to do with Celica gone, the Deliverance had found them. Silque, an older cleric from the priory that had left Novis several weeks before they had had recognised them immediately, Genny jumping to greet her with a cry of joy, and Saber nodded at the mercenary standing by a bow knight's side that Mae recognised as _Deen_ , of all people - how the hell had he ended up mixed in with the Deliverance?

After the general ruckus of a legitimate army crowded into small underground tunnels noisily greeting a crew of exhausted, hodge podge fighters quiet down, Alm looks them all over carefully. "We're continuing on," he says. "I'm sorry, but we don't have time to waste. We can leave a few supplies for you here, to help you recover -"

"Oh, _no_ ," Mae snaps, and jabs out a finger to stab straight at his cheek. A girl on horseback with twin braids and a wickedly sharp spear the likes of which Mae has never seen before actually _hisses_ from behind Alm, and the rest of the group seem just as uneasy at the overtly threatening way she's presenting herself. Alm, though - he just looks exhausted, if that. He barely blinks at her as she continues to poke at him, leaving red mark after red mark on his cheek, and his eyes are shadowed. He doesn't quite look defeated, but he does look like he might just shove her aside and keep walking on if he doesn't find her words important, so Mae benches the lecture she's been mentally editing and adding to for months and jumps on to issue number two. "Look, maybe I'm tired, and maybe I'm injured, but so are all of you! So no way, no how, _nu uh_ , am I being left to sit here with a pile bandages and fruit while Boey eats handfuls of raw flour!" Boey makes a slightly offended noise from behind her, but she ignores him and crosses her arms over her chest. " _I'm finding Celica_ ," she says. Her tone invites no argument.

Letting all the wind out of her sails, Alm doesn't argue. "You're not Deliverance," he says. "I can't tell you what to do. Stay here, come with us, strike out on your own - it's all your own choice." Those tired eyes narrow at her, and Mae feels something in her spine snap straight as steel when he _looks_ at her, like Celica does, like Nomah used to when she was younger. The look that says ' _I am in charge, you_ will _obey_.' "It'll be safer to travel with us, though."

"Which would probably help you out too," Mae points out. "I'm seeing a whole lot of swords and spears, but not a lot of mages." Only the one archer, too, unless there's another beside that bow knight hidden away in the back of the throng somewhere. Leon against those stupid eyeball terrors? One shot, one kill, hell yeah.

At the words 'mages,' Mae sees Alm arch a brow at the Ladyblade strapped to her side, but he doesn't say anything. What, do his mages not carry any weapons for a situation where their magic alone is not enough?

"If you _do_ come with us, though," he says. "I'm in charge. Not you, not the mercenary. We don't know how you fight and I can't risk getting any of _my_ people killed because you tried to tackle an enemy beyond your limits and they break past you." Mae bristles, and opens her mouth to take his arrogance down a peg or two, when he holds up his hand in the universal gesture for peace. "I'm not trying to imply doubt in your skills, or that you're not trustworthy. You're Celica's friends, and as far as I'm concerned, that's enough for me to trust you all with my life." His eyes narrow, pinched and unhappy. "But it isn't just _my_ life I'll be trusting you with. And even if you were all among the best warriors Valentia has to offer...none of you look like you should be on your feet much longer, to be completely honest. Fatigue is a more dangerous thing to arm yourself with in battle than carelessness is."

Mae acknowledges the point, because he's right, but doesn't let that deter her for a second. "I'm coming," she said. "I'll follow your orders, because you're right, and I'm no tactician, but I'm coming, and you can't stop me."

Alm nods, just once, and then looks past her to the rest of the crew sitting down in the tunnels, seemingly content to just let her off and watch her go. If she was anyone else, she'd be embarrassed, probably. But she's Mae, so she's just content with her win. _Booyah_.

"And what about all of you?" He asks. "I was serious when I said we don't exactly have time to just be standing around here. We need to move on - are you coming, or staying?"

"Ah - one question, before I answer," Boey says, and Mae scowls when she sees him brushing fingers coated in white powder against his cloak. "You're travelling deeper into the catacombs, that's easy to see - but pray tell, what _exactly_ is your goal?"

An excellent question, Mae muses, but Boey's still a silly boy for asking it, because regardless of what Alm says, they're _all_ going with them to find Celica and zap Jedah _in the face_ -

"We're going to kill Duma," Alm says, completely serious, and Mae stares. Boey stares. Nomah, leaning against Sonya, makes a sound like Boey had just set his beard on fire again.

"I'm sorry, what?" She asks, and it's with that question that she sees the first stirrings of impatience light up in Alm's eyes. It's almost kind of scary, the way he scowls at her, enough to send her scurrying a step or two away from him, just in case. She quickly averts her own gaze, not wanting to look at him looking at her anymore, and settles it on the red haired guy wrapped in a cape that Mae wants to _steal_ because it's _cold down here_ , and tries to read an answer from his faint, amused smile. "Is he serious?"

"Of course I'm serious," Alm snaps. "It's not something to joke about."

"Mae," Nomah says quietly, just as she's about to reach out and shake actual comprehensive answers out of Alm, regardless of how much he intimidates her. She pauses, and stares back at him in a silent invitation for him to go on - she respects her teacher - but he's not looking at her. He's looking at Alm.

"It is true, then," he says, and for the first time in Mae's life - in probably Nomah's entire life - he actually _sounds_ old. "Their degeneration cannot be stopped."

"You've known this was coming, old friend," says an old guy on a horse, armour edged with gilt, and Mae wants to throw up her hands and just be done with everything, because she's so lost. "Known this was coming for quite some time."

"Aye," Nomah agrees, and there is a moment of silence.

Genny, of all people, is the one to break it, after an encouraging smile from Sonya. "Degeneration?" she asks.

"The fate of all Divine Dragons who linger too long in this world and cling to flesh is madness," Nomah says. "So it has always been, and so it will always be. It is for this reason that Naga bestows upon mankind the Kingsfang."

Mae swallows, partly from the vivid memory that brings to life of a shining blade pierced through the Earth Mother's skull, and partly because her brain is spinning with the knowledge Nomah had just given her - that Naga, _the_ Divine Dragon, gave the people of Valentia a god-slaying weapon with the intent that it _would_ , eventually, be used.

Nomah's eyes rest on Alm's sword. "You do not have the Kingsfang," he says, and Alm shakes his head.

"Not yet," he says, and explains the encounter he'd had with Celica, not even fifteen minutes earlier. Something tight and painful swells up in Mae's chest, choking her throat, and she curses herself for deciding to _rest_ when they'd landed here instead of pressing on. Stupid, _stupid!_

A glance behind her shows that some self-directed discontent showing in Boey’s downturned eyes, and Mae gently reaches a hand out to him, briefly broken out of her own self-loathing to brush soft fingers against his arm. He blinks, and smiles up at her, though his eyes are shadowed. His own fingers come up to interlock with hers, for just a second, and she feels the pressure of his reassuring grip as he squeezes her hand tight before letting go.

“Are we ready to move, then?” He asks, addressing his words to Alm in a perfectly even, respectful tone – he’s always been better at that than her, and she’d long stopped being jealous of that fact; only grateful that since _he_ was taking the lead and doing the talking, she no longer had to.

Alm nods, and within short order, they – Celica’s friends – are shuffled to the back of the arranged group, with strict orders to “stay out of the way.” It isn’t said rudely, and Alm reassures them that if they see any free terrors or enemies, they can feel free to take them down, but as it is, with them being so tired and the Deliverance so unused to fighting with outsiders that already have their own familiar attack patterns, it’s clear that said Deliverance fighters would prefer it if they kept themselves well out of the way. There are several mounted soldiers in particular that send them uneasy looks, and Mae figures the animals are unused to big or constant shows of magic, since Mae thinks she can spot maybe two or three mages amongst the crowd of swords and spears.

And then they’re moving, before she can take even a second to think any further on it, Genny running back to stand with them from where she had been embracing Silque, Saber by her side, both of them looking better than they had ten minutes earlier – Silque had healed them, Mae figured, though that didn’t really explain why they looked so energised.

She said as much as Genny hurried to her side and raised her staff – Mae felt a gentle glow of healing warmth wash over her before Genny moved onto Valbar. “The Gold Knight over there,” she says, and nods in the direction of the girl that had hissed at Mae. “Silque is training her as a cleric, too.” She bit her lip. “She has a support spell I’ve never even heard of before – she called it Anew. When she cast it on us, it was like…we’d been given a burst of energy.”

“One hell of a second wind,” Saber agrees, and rubs at his neck, staring straight ahead as they march through the creeping tunnels, lit not just by torches but some intangible source of light – for an underground cavern with the only light source the occasional flame, the entire place is far too bright. “Looks like it took a lot out of her, though, so the kid told her to hold back on casting it for the rest of you unless it became absolutely necessary.”

That led to Mae wondering why Alm had allowed her to cast it on Genny and Saber, then – the answer came to her quickly, though. The Deliverance was clearly far more used to strictly physical fighters than magical ones, and as a dreadfighter Saber was one of Celica’s best – and Genny, well, she was a no brainer. If you found yourself with an extra healer in your group, you used them. It made sense to Mae that Alm had logicked it out; after all, he couldn’t have led a rebel group as deep into Rigel as he had had he not been pragmatic.

“I’m not sure if I should be hoping if it _does_ become necessary or not,” Boey grimaces, and Leon lets out a small huff of agreement with a weak grin, Genny casting a light heal on him once she finishes with Kamui. “As much as I’d appreciate a second wind, as Saber put it, the idea of having to end up in even more dire straits for Alm to allow it is…unsavoury, at best.”

Mae hums her agreement. “Just gotta keep our heads above water,” she says, ignoring the fact that mages, as a general rule, just run out of energy faster than other fighters – casting takes _life_ to pull off right.

“You make it sound so _simple_ ,” Boey grumbles, but doesn’t argue or protest her words.

She grins, and nearly walks straight into Saber’s back. “Hey!” she protests, but bites back her vexation when he raises up his hand in a sharp, cutting motion: _quiet_.

Mae falls silent immediately, the others following suit around her, and soon enough all she can hear through the tunnels is the sound of a battalion’s worth of people breathing out of sync with each other. She stands on her toes, and cranes her neck to try and catch a glimpse of the group way up the front – Alm, the girl Gold Knight, the redheaded man with the cape (he’s a baron, she thinks, noting the similarity of his get up to Valbar’s), a mage with white hair that would have her turning to check Boey was still beside her if his skin wasn’t so pale, and a pair of blond paladins, one man and one woman. Mae can’t really tell from so far away, but she thinks that Alm’s face is creased with worry, or maybe anxiety, the lot of them glancing at each other and then back into the cavernous dark that she guesses leads into the next larger, more open section of the tunnels – they’ve encountered a few of them, and they’re always full of terrors. This one is probably going to be no different, so she can’t for the life of her figure out why a group of trained soldiers – surely so much more disciplined at this point than their own group, even if Mae would never agree to them being more _skilled_ – is looking so worried.

“What’s going on?” She hisses, and the hand Saber still holds up in a request for silence whips out to whack her forehead.

“What part of _quiet_ do you not understand, lass?” He says, in a tone that implies it isn’t actually a question, gaze intense and never wavering from the front. “There’s something in that room up ahead. Something they’re not sure about. _Something_ ,” he stresses. “I’m not sure that _we_ should be fighting.”

Mae opens her mouth to protest, and Valbar, always so honourable, makes a grumbling sound of protest.

“We’re meant to be finding Celica,” Saber reminds them before they can cut him off. “We can’t do that if we’re _dead_.”

Sonya’s hum isn’t quite agreement, but she doesn’t protest Saber’s words, either. “There’s something dark up ahead,” she says. “Duma’s power – not terrors, I would say, but a witch.” Her expression pinches. “A new one, from the feel of her.”

Mae feels a stab of sympathy despite herself. “That’s awful,” she says, quietly, but with feeling.

Silently, Sonya nods, and reaches out a hand to grip Genny’s shoulder. Genny’s hand comes up to entwine with Sonya’s, resting in the crook of her neck, and Mae wonders who, exactly, is comforting who there. Maybe they both are – Sonya’s eyes are as dark as she has ever seen them, and Genny is shivering, lightly trembling in a way Mae hasn’t seen since that first graveyard full of terrors, just after leaving the priory, all of them still fresh faced and unexperienced in battles where the target could move and fight back.

“We’re moving,” Saber notes, eyes narrowed, and he unsheathes his sword as he steps forward. “Be ready,” he warns. “If there really is a witch up ahead, being kept ‘safely’ in the back isn’t going to do us much good. Hell, exhausted as we are, we’ll probably be her first targets.”

Mae nods to show she understands, and grips the Ladyblade’s hilt tightly in her right hand. Her casting isn’t best from her left, but she’ll still be able to land at least a few hits if it comes down to it, and spells never really work that great against witches, anyway – she’d only ever seen Sagittae do hard work on witches, and Sonya’s Excalibur, which was high up on Mae’s list of ‘the most powerful magic I’ve ever seen,’ only a few spaces below Celica’s Seraphim or Ragnarok.

A quick glance sideways shows the rest of the group looking just as alert – Leon already has an arrow nocked, though his string is kept loose and the head is point down; Valbar’s spear tip is a deadly point of shining light and Kamui’s blessed sword, handed over to him by Celica once she’d had her Beloved Zofia forged from her mother’s dagger, is radiating the faint luminescence of all holy weapons – Conrad’s lance, too, is a strip of deadly moonlight against the earthy walls of the tunnels. Nomah, Boey and Atlas all have their staffs at the ready, and while Jesse’s sword is just of plain steel (if upgraded a few times, whenever they’d stopped in a village and he had the marks to afford it), he looks no less ready to use it, and no less able than the rest of them.

Mae feels a flush of warmth – pride and happiness and something unnameable – and wishes that Celica was with them now, ready and willing to march on forward and grant the witch ahead of them mercy.

Except, when they finally breach through to the room, her gaze adjusting to the dimmer lighting, it isn’t a witch that awaits them, she sees, but a pale man with hair to match, wearing armour of green and gold that looks like it must have cost more to forge than all of their gear combined – not that it was all worth spending that much, apparently, because it’s all but shattered; splintered and bent in a way that has bile clawing its way up Mae’s throat when she notes the blood glistening across its edges and sees vividly the mental image of a great impact caving the chest plate in, and the man’s torso beneath it.

She gags, and looks down and away as the blond paladins she’d noticed before rush forward with cries of shock and what she can only guess is grief, a similarly blond Pegasus Knight landing to jump down from her steed and hover behind the male paladin.

Mae feels a stab of worry for their own Pegasus Knight companions – the three Whitewing sisters had put in more effort than the rest of them combined on their fruitless climb up the seemingly endless Duma Tower, and just before they’d reached the top floor, they’d begged for a break to rest their steeds. Celica had agreed easily, and they’d said farewell to Palla, Catria and Est easily, promising to see them again ‘in ten minutes.’ Of course, then, Jedah had sent them all Mila knows where so he could do whatever he wanted to Celica, and the Whitewings, separate from them at the time, hadn’t come with them.

Mae hopes they’re okay. She doesn’t know what she’ll do if they’re not.

The blond Pegasus Knight is crying, repeating a single name over and over again – _Fernand_ , Mae thinks she hears, but she knows grief and knows there is nothing she can do for this girl, so she averts her eyes and closes her ears to her cries. She looks instead to Alm, who is standing over the mourning trio, a distant sadness in his eyes and a crease between his brows.

He sends a narrow eyed glare further down the tunnel, where Mae notes a blood trail crawls from, ending where Fernand had fallen, and a cold premonition turns her spine to ice. Her grip on the Ladyblade is almost painful, now.

“There’s a witch ahead,” Sonya says, and the attention of the majority of the Deliverance whips to her. Mae, for all her bravado, is almost tempted to shrink back at so many eyes turned her way, even if they’re not directed at _her_ , but Sonya stands unflinching. “A witch,” she repeats, locking eyes with Alm. “Dead ahead from here – not too far now.”

Alm stares at Sonya, then down the hall, then down at his feet – his feet, Mae notices, are just shy of the edge of the pool of blood that had formed around Fernand; the pool of blood that the paladins and the Pegasus Knight are too busy grieving to care about. Alm swallows, and takes a careful step back.

“We’re going on ahead,” he says, grim determination settling into the lines on his face, his shoulders shifting like an extra mantle of weight had been added to the cape fastened to his pauldrons. “But whoever this witch is, she’s clearly powerful.” A twitch in his expression, a falter that might have been avoiding a downwards glance. “If any of you don’t want to risk facing her, then you can turn back now, or wait here. _Anyone_ who chooses not to fight,” he stresses. “Is not a coward, nor a craven. I don’t want anyone following me because they feel like they owe it to their honour. This is going to be a dangerous fight, so-”

Cutting Alm off, the solitary bow knight Mae had spotted earlier lets out a wild bark of laughter. “Geez, kid,” he says, the echoes of amusement clear in his voice. “For such a smart leader, you sure can be as dumb as a sack of shit, you know?”

“ _Python_ ,” a knight hisses out, voice strangled and eyes bugging out of his head. The bow knight – Python – waves him off and nudges his horse closer to the front, where Alm is watching him with narrow, wary eyes, but without anger.

“Kid,” Python says again. “ _Alm_. We followed you down into these damnable tunnels to _fight Duma_. If we’re all raring to test our skills against the War Father, what the hell do you think you’re doing, doubting our ability to go up against a witch?”

Mae could almost swear she saw pink dusting Alm’s cheeks, but what was clearer was the raised brows that he – and everyone else in the room – were sending towards Python.

“Of all the people to give me an encouraging speech,” Alm said slowly, “I was not expecting _you_ to step up, Python.”

“Heh,” Python chuckles, and rubs a hand through his hair. “Bottom of the list, was I?”

“Honestly, you never made it onto the list at all,” Alm admits dryly, and Python laughs out loud.

Mae thinks that this is probably not the best time for the two of them to be _joking_ together, but a quick glance around the room reveals that the members of the Deliverance are loosening up – the Pegasus Knight looking up at Alm and smiling through her tears. “Now, do not tease Python too much, Alm,” she says, and her voice is rough, choked up. “His aim is bad enough without you upsetting him.”

Alm laughs, and Python rolls his eyes. “My aim is fine,” he says.

“Yeah, when you actually bother to put the effort in,” A knight jeers, and Python waves him off.

“Hush,” he says. “You’re ruining the moment, kid.”

“No, this is fine,” Alm says. “This is perfectly fine. It’s…weird, that it came from Python, but I think that was a talk that I needed. That we all needed.”

Python shrugs. “Just doing my part for the cause,” he says, and taps a hand at the bows in his quiver. “I hate witches, anyway. It’s a mercy to put them down as soon as possible – a mercy for _all_ of us.”

Alm lets out an agreeing hum, and turns back towards the paladins still crouched over Fernand’s body. “Are you two okay to move on?” He asks, and his voice is soft. Mae can’t see the face of the male paladin as he looks up, and she can’t hear the exact words he says, but she does hear his voice break.

She looks away, giving them as much privacy as she can in that moment, and feels Boey’s hand creep into hers. For just a second, she grips him tightly – only letting go once Alm gives the call to move out, and Saber shoos them along.

Her hand is empty now, as Boey’s falls away from hers to grip at his staff, and it feels almost cold. She calls on the first sparks of fire, ready to throw down a fireball in a seconds notice, and feels the warmth bite at the tips of her fingers.

As they step into the next open room after a fairly quick trip through only a short length of the tunnels – only encountering a few terrors, which were swiftly dealt with by the Deliverance soldiers in the front of the group – Mae realises the flames she holds cupped in her hand aren’t the only ones crackling to life.

Sonya sucks in a sharp breath, and Mae looks up immediately, eyes locking onto what can only be the witch Sonya had sensed – the witch that, she presumes, killed Fernand.

She doesn’t look like any witch Mae has ever seen before – she’s pure fire, and Mae quickly douses the spell she holds at the ready, since the idea of throwing a fireball at a witch _made_ of fire doesn’t exactly sound like, you know, a good idea. Even if the burning coal of her skin doesn’t click in Mae’s mind as ‘witch’ as much as, say, purple skin would, her eyes are purely soulless – empty and dull, glazed over and reflecting nothing from within.

Mae swallows, and takes an automatic step back. She bumps into someone – armoured, but not as heavily as Valbar, so she guesses it’s either Kamui or Jesse, given how she remembers the formation they had been in before, but she’s too frozen to look back and check. The witch probably isn’t looking at her, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t _feel_ like she is – because it does.

“Keep your calm, Mae,” Sonya says – her eyes are on the ground, staring at the Gold Knight surrounded by an aura that sends chills down Mae’s spine. Thankfully, unlike the witch hovering above them, Mae gets no sense that this man is staring at her; no he’s very clearly fixated entirely on Alm, a hunger in his gaze that scares her almost as much as the emptiness in the witch’s. “This won’t be an easy fight – but we’re not fighting alone.”

Mae takes in a shaky breath, but nods her agreement. “You’re right,” she says, and unsheathes her sword. Calmer, now, she pulls her attention away from the argument taking place between Alm and the Gold Knight, and sees the terrors filling the room, running for the scattered soldiers of the Deliverance…and, more importantly, running for them.

A sharp yell from beside her, and then the sensation of ghost arrows whipping past her, ruffling her hair. Boey’s Sagittae guns down a dreadfighter heading for her with his sword’s sharp edge at the ready, and he drops to the floor – dead on impact.

“Thanks,” she says, and steps forward into the battle. There are arcanists and dreadfighters scattered around the edge of the room, flitting about the borders of the Deliverance and striking at the fighters when they’re distracted by the terrors also filling the room. Mae can’t tell if the terrors are under the command of the witch or one the arcanists – there are no cantors in the room, as far as she can see, but she supposes that doesn’t mean there isn’t one hiding away somewhere, even though she’s never seen summoned terrors appear without their summoner close at hand.

So instead, Mae turns her attention towards the arcanists scattered about the room – her ability to take hits from magic is higher than most, and the blade she wields is sharp enough to kill in a hit if she strikes fast and true.

She’s aware of Leon behind her, his bow at the ready, watching her back and watching for an opening on the witch. On the other side of the battle field, Python is doing the same thing, absentmindedly nudging his horse to stamp down enemies that get too close to him while he keeps his focus on the witch, and on his Pegasus Knight ally flitting about her, trying to get in close enough to get in a hit with her lance before the flames surrounding the witch flare up, forcing her back.

“Tch,” Leon hisses out, and lowers his bow. “She’ll burn up any arrow that gets close to her. Do you think magic will take her down?”

Mae flicks a quick glance up at her, and then shakes her head. “Not my magic, at least,” she says, and it’s painful to admit. “She’s powerful beyond any witch I’ve seen before. I’m not sure that any of us would be able to kill her with magic, except maybe Celica.” She bites her lip. “Sonya’s Excalibur or Boey’s Sagittae might be able to _knock_ her to the ground if they hit her fast enough, but killing her will probably take something a lot more physical.”

“Hmm,” Leon grunts, and Mae looks back to see him staring at Valbar with deep worry. She can’t blame him, really – out of all of them, Valbar is the worst at taking magical hits, and several arcanists on the way to the Sage’s Hamlet had very nearly punched his ticket permanently, to say nothing of their slow crawl up Duma Tower.

They _need_ to deal with this witch, and fast – Mae looks around the battlefield for help, and sees Alm and his Gold Knight girlfriend dodging around the enemy Gold Knight – her unique spear stabs out to knick his horses leg, and when it rears back, Alm lunges forward to slam the flat of his blade against the Gold Knight’s chest, throwing him from his horse to the ground.

“ _ALM_ ,” the Gold Knight roars, his voice a snarl, a howl, something inhuman.

“Berkut!” Alm snaps back, and though his voice is calmer, he sounds no less angry. “You need to stop! Now!”

A wordless scream is his only answer, and Mae tenses as suddenly, the entire room is ablaze. The witch above them screams in tandem with Berkut, diving down to land by his side.

In that moment, it seems like the entire room is on edge, and all thinking the same thing: _the witch is down. We can hit her now._

 _We can_ kill _her now_.

Next to her, Leon’s bow is back up and at the ready, and Mae is running for the middle of the room, centre of gravity low and sword held out before her. The witch, it seems, is simply trying to guard Berkut, arms looped over his shoulders.

But then – but then –

Berkut stands, and he smiles. Mae’s steps falter, suddenly uncertain – Berkut offers his hand to the witch standing beside him, and as she takes it, entwining their fingers together, Mae stops altogether.

An arrow flies past her, aiming true for the witch’s heart, but before it can make contact, she’s twirling away – spinning into Berkut’s arms. _Dancing_.

Mae’s confused, but only a moment later, that confusion doesn’t matter, because Alm’s Gold Knight sucks in an alarmed breath. “Alm!” she calls out. “Whatever she’s doing – it’s like Anew!”

It takes a moment for that to register in Mae’s mind, but then she remembers what Genny had said about that apparently unique spell. She swears, low and furtive, and braces herself for an attack.

“Take her down!” Alm yells, his voice a bitter order. “Clair, now!”

Before he’s even finished saying her name, the Pegasus Knight is diving down, blessed lance a blur of hardlight shooting out for the kill. “ _On your knees!_ ”

The strike is hard and true – Mae feels sick when she sees how the tip of the lance pierces through the witch’s chest and then _further_ , out of her back. And yet, she still isn’t dead, and from the renewed fervour in Berkut’s eyes, her spell has already taken effect.

So Mae moves in. The Pegasus Knight – Clair – has moved back from the witch’s immediate counter attack range, but did not have the time to remove her spear before she did so. Unarmed, now, she’s vulnerable –

 _So Mae moves in_.

“ _You’re not stopping me!_ ” She snarls, and drives the Ladyblade through the witch’s chest, just beside the blessed lance. It hums against her ear, and over her own shallow breaths Mae can just pick up the witch’s sharp inhale. One final, shocked breath in, and then her lungs don’t move again. Gently, Mae lets her fall from her sword, and tugs the lance out. It’s dimmer in the room now, without the witchfire lighting it up, and curled up and still, the witch looks very small.

The battlefield isn’t a place for grief or regrets, but Mae takes a second for sorrow, handing Clair her lance back when she lands beside her.

“My thanks,” Clair says, and nods at her. “For my lance, and for the aid. I’ve never known a witch that strike would not kill – she took me quite by surprise.”

“She was definitely a strong one,” Mae agrees, and looks about the room. Only a few stray terrors and Berkut remain, and with his witch dead, it seems like Alm has him readily under control. Mae feels her adrenalin fade away, just a little bit, her previous exhaustion biting at her with even more force than before, and by the Mother, does she just want Celica. She’s scared to look too closely at the witch lying dead at her feet, lest she sees Celica’s face – she’d heard what Jedah had been saying, before he’d flung them into the catacombs, and the fight had just driven that all home.

Celica, soulless. Celica, a witch, a slave to a divine dragon gone mad.

It’s nearly enough to reduce her to tears, so she moves away from Clair, to look for her own people.

She finds Boey, looking as drained as she feels, half collapsed against a half collapsed pillar.

“So,” he says, and his words come out between gasps. “How many do you think you took down? Can’t have been as many as me.”

“I took down the witch,” Mae says, and what once would have been a playful boast is a plea for comfort. Boey, bless his occasional smarts, understands at once.

“Here,” he says gently, and pats the ground next to him, swatting away bits of rubble. “It’s not exactly comfortable, but –”

“It’s perfect,” Mae sighs, and slumps down next to him. She rests her head on his shoulders, and just feels him breathe. Feels his heartbeat under his skin. He stiffens, then relaxes, and for just a moment Mae feels safe enough to close her eyes.

"We're going to find her, right?" She asks softly. "We're going to find Celica, before - before -"

Boey's hand comes up to cup her cheek, wipe away the stray tear that leaks from her eyes. "Of course we will," he tells her, and even with the ice still steeling her spine, Boey has one hand on her face and the other looped around one of her hands, and in that moment she feels warm. 

"It's a promise," she says, and imagines Celica's hand entwined with hers - the three of them, back together, just as it always should be.

**Author's Note:**

> AU musings:
> 
> In my playthrough, I had Faye on the Cavalier line. She was one of my best units, so I had her equipped with the Duma Lance, which is why Mae doesn't recognise the make of the spear.
> 
> Although she was a Cavalier, I decided to keep her learning Anew because a) unique spells should always be used, b) she and Silque are friends and the idea of her teaching Faye Cleric skills and being taught Cavalier skills in turn is adorable, and c) it led neatly into my next headcanon:
> 
> DANCER RINEA, GUYS. Like okay, it seems kind of dorky, but one of the few things we actually get about her character is she likes dancing. Specifically, she likes dancing with Berkut. So, if you will, imagine a map where instead of it being so much a 'final battle,' it's a final dance. Rinea and Berkut's final dance, and you have to take her down quickly because as long as she's alive you don't stand a chance against Berkut.
> 
> (FEH add Rinea as a Dancer please I'll give you my left kidney)
> 
> Also, Mae/Boey/Celica. Nice.


End file.
